Connecticut western news., 1887-03-09
COTTON SEED OIL.
An Industry Which Has Spread Rapidly in the South.
Various Useful Products Extracted From
 An Article Once Thrown Away,

In every bale of cotton there are 1000 pounds of seed and 500 pounds of lint. As about two fcres of land are required to raise bale of cotton, one acre will produce about 500 pounds of cotton seed which brings the planter $10 per ton or $2 50 per acre. A ton of seed yields 76 gallons of oil, which sells for about 30 cents per gallon. It also yields about 20 pounds of short staple lint, useful for making cotton batting, etc. Besides there is the meal, formerly considered valuable only to mix with other food for cattle, but which is now returned to the soil in. the shape of fertilizer.
 Tho gossypiun is fertilizer especial ly adapted to the needs Of cotton, and its principal ingredient is cotton-seed meal, or the pu!vcrized cake from which cotton seed oil has been expressed. As the gossypium factory is dependent upon the oil mill for material, and the latter finds in the fertilizer works ready market for it's largest product. the two are often found closely connected and governed by mutual interests.
 The cotton seed upon en er;ng the mill first passes through the 'Iinters"- delicate machines wh oh remove from each separate seed every particle of it's feecy covering which has escaped the crudcr process of the cotton gin. From the Inter it goes into the huller, where its hull or shell is split open and torn off. The meat is then boiled in huge cal- drons, during which operation it gives out Q rich, unctous odor, suggestive of culinary operations on a large scale, but not at all unpleasant. The boi.ed seed, cncascd 1n small coarse bags, then goes to ''press." Twenty bags filled with the we!l-cooked mass arc thrust into as many receptacles of an immensely powerful steam-press. Power is applied gradually, but with a terribly relentless energy, until the oil, flowing out in steady streams, and finding it's way to the receiving tanks below, has been en- i tirely expressed from the several bags, and each contains merely hard, dry cake. From these cakes the sacking covering is stripped, to be used again, and they are thrust into the jaws of g rapidly revolving mill that instantly re- duces them to meal, which goes to the fertilizer factory across the way.
 The Atlanta cotton-sced oil mill pro- duces 10, 900 barrels of oil and 4000 tons l of meal annually. It is possible to SC refine this oil as to produce tasteless, odorless and colorless liquid, and it: sphere of usefulness is being daily ex. tended. It is largely used in adultcra. tions, and it is stated upon good author. ity that one- fourth of all the lard used ir this country is cotton-sced oil.
 | In this Atlanta mill nothing is wasted even tho hulls of the cotton seed art utilized as fuel beneath the boilers O its 15O-horse-power engine. Not only do these hulls furnish fuel for this mil but half of them forced through 600 feet of pneumatis pipe, re..ch the adjacen ''gossypium" works. anl there form thu only fuel used to heat it's boilers. B. sides cotton-seed meal, the ingredient of the 'gossyp;um phospho" are sul phuric acid, which is manufactured ol the premises rom sulphur imported by the shipoad from Sicily, muriate o potash, which comes from German mines, nitrate of soda, from Peru, SUI. phate of ammonia, from Chicago, ant phosphates, which are dug on the S on River near Charleston, South Carolina
 In 1876 the cotton-sced oil mills wcr only paying tho planters about cigh cents per bushel for seed, as there wa no market for the meal, and depending upon tho oil alone for profit, the could afford no more. Now they pa from sixteen to eighteen cents pc bushel for the seed. The fertilize produced from it can be bought fo $32 per ton, and a ton is sufficient fo about ten acres. The result of it's use to double the yielding capacity of tn soil, so that the entire cost of the fertili ger is now defrayed by the cotton seed which was formerly an alm st vast product, and the extra yield of lint ma be considered as just so much cle; profit Harper's Weekly.